Pop open those bottles of chilled champagne. The United States of America is now in the same exclusive company as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, and Serbia. Our flagging democracy has landed on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist along with those four nations.

https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025

According to its mission statement, “CIVICUS has worked for nearly two decades to strengthen citizen action and civil society throughout the world, especially in areas where participatory democracy and citizens’ freedom of association are threatened.”

“The Watchlist draws attention to countries where there is a serious decline in respect for civic space, based on an assessment by CIVICUS Monitor research findings, our research partners and consultations with activists on the ground.”

For the United States, CIVICUS cites “undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term. Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association…Due to the Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation, CIVICUS has added the United States of America (USA) to its Watchlist of countries with faltering civic freedoms.”

Unlike Congressional Republicans that are goose-stepping in line with a president who cares nothing for Constitutional laws and norms, or the oath of office he took, the researchers at this South African-based research group can see the horror that is unfolding here in the U.S.

Some specifics that CIVICUS named in its March 10^th news release.

· Arbitrary executive orders leading to mass firings of public servants.

· Takeover over of key positions in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Trump loyalists. “They are likely to severely impact constitutional freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association.”

· Indiscriminate retreats from cooperative international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council.

· Attacks on programs of diversity, equality, and inclusions, halting the progress that DEI has made.

· Intimidation on journalists including banning the Associated Press from the White House and from talking to government officials.

· Halting funding “ for civil society organizations that support sexual and reproductive freedoms due to its negative stance on abortion rights.”

· “Continued repression against pro-Palestinian protesters with arbitrary penalties and student visa cancellations.”

To summarize, “This is an unparalleled attack on the rule of law in the United States, not seen since the days of McCarthyism in the twentieth century. Restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal.

“The Trump administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society,” said Mandeep Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS.

https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/USA

I want to circle back to the last bullet point, the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protestors, because we are seeing the arrest and muzzling of those who oppose the viewpoints of this new administration happening in real time. Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was grabbed by Immigration Enforcement and Customs agents and taken from his home (and from his wife, who is eight months pregnant) and whisked off to some deportation location in Louisiana. He has not been charged with a crime. He is a legal resident of the U.S., but now his green card has been revoked thanks to an order by the always spineless windsock, Secretary of State Little Marco Rubio.

President Trump, who cheered the arrest of Khalil, promises more arrests and crackdowns on what he labels as “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”

There is no evidence that Khalil, the leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, fits into any of those three categories. The Department of Homeland Security is accusing Khalid of being “aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

The Anti-Defamation League, never one to miss an opportunity to acknowledge a slight—real or imagined—praised the detention as a “bold set of efforts to counter campus anti-semitism” by “holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.”

In ADL’s viewpoint and in Trump, anyone who supports Palestinians and protests the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent victims and the scorched-earth devastation of Gaza has to be “anti-semitic.”

(I wrote about this issue last year for the Chicago Tribune. The column, titled “Why Can’t I Criticize the War in Gaza without Being Called Antisemitic?” was syndicated far and wide in newspapers across the United States. In the column I of course condemned Hamas, because you can be compassionate and clear-eyed at the same time. From the column: “Am I allowed to point out that so often the historically oppressed becomes the oppressor du jour?

“Who will be the next university president forced to resign or be fired because of a pro-Palestinian campus protest or because of a linguistic trap set by anti-intellectual members of Congress who demand fealty of all students and faculty in support of Israel’s aggressive bombing of Gaza? Are universities becoming islands of repression in a sea of democracy?”

I also wrote a piece in January of 2024 for the Defense Post that criticized Israel for using U.S.-manufactured white phosphorus shells on a Lebanese village and earlier on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. https://thedefensepost.com/2024/01/02/israel-white-phosphorus/)

Hmm, where have we heard the term “anti-American activity.” McCarthyism of the 1950s is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as, “1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition.”

Protests on campuses, in front of the White House or at Tesla dealerships are protected by a document that Trump has probably never read, the Constitution of the United States of America. The founders of our nation made sure that the freedoms that Trump and his henchmen would like to do away with were in the very first amendment. “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

While Khalid awaits a hearing regarding his status, while languishing in deportment purgatory, I can only imagine that many of his fellow protestors and those around the country are fearing that knock at the door.

From the New York Times: “Because Mahmoud has been so prominent, active and outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, he’s been marked as a target,” said one of his lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York. “What’s being done to him is unconstitutional, it is unlawful, and we intend to do everything in our power to ensure the Trump administration will not get away with it in court.”

Yet, the damage has already occurred. No matter what happens in court the Trump administration has erected another block in its authoritarian wall by instilling fear into anyone who dares to practice their First Amendment rights, either in print or in person.

If you don’t believe me, listen to Khalid’s wife: “I was born and raised in the Midwest. My parents came here from Syria, carrying their stories of the oppressive regime there that made life unlivable. They believed living in the US would bring a sense of safety and stability. But here I am, 40 years after my parents immigrated here, and just weeks before I’m due to give birth to our first child, and I feel more unsafe and unstable than I have in my entire life.”

She is not alone.

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